Hiking in Pinnacles NP

Earlier this year, my husband received an email notifying him of vacancy in Curry Village, the largest lodging facility in Yosemite NP. Since this was something that had never happened before (and they sell out in a blink of an eye), we immediately got some people together and booked 3 heated tents for 3 couples. However, the week before the said date the weather was hot/warm and a threat of flooding in the Yosemite Valley due to melting snow necessitated the cancellation of all bookings for the weekend. So we scrambled for things to do for that weekend, which was the weekend following the visit to Sugarloaf Ridge SP.

One of the couples invited us to spend it in Pacific Grove (next door to Monterey) but we didn't make any arrangements for a cat sitter. We have a senior cat that is pretty needy and gets stressed out pretty quickly. So we politely declined the invite. We were looking at something we could do for a day trip.

All of a sudden, Pinnacles NP came into the radar. It's one of the national parks within a 3-hour drive that we have not visited yet. And it's closer too at just about 2-hour drive from San Francisco give or take 2 hours due to traffic (sorry, not sorry).

When we arrived, there was a long line of cars awaiting entry. I think they are still doing some crowd control. We waited in the queue for about 30 minutes.

We passed through the fertile Salinas Valley and the acres and acres of farmland.

I asked the husband to take my picture.

Remember it was either Wednesday or Thursday when the email about cancellation was received so we did not have enought time to make plans on what to do here. We played it by ear and decided that we should do a little drive and perhaps a small hike.

We drove out a short distance from the Pinnacles monument and found a parking lot, which was full. However, a moment later, a car was pulling out and we saw that from this lot we can take our pick from three trails. We chose the Balconies Cave Loop Trail, because we want to see a cave and also we misread the signage. We thought that it's a 2 mile loop. Instead, it was 5.2-mile loop, our error was discovered when my Fitbit made me realized that my steps were way past 2 miles and we're not in the cave yet.

Also, the wildflower sightings were incredible. Nothing in the superbloom category, but impressive just the same.

The first time I have seen a red thistle. It's a thistle, isn't it?

We indulged in photography.

We also caught sight of several condors but our cameras did not get a good shot.

We're very very close to the Balconies Cave. I don't know the origins of its name.

Climb the rock steps.

I thought I'd take a short breather. I wasn't tired, can you believe that, but I wanted the photo taken.

This is the way to the Cave.

I really liked these two photos of the husband that I took while following his lead into the cave.

The cave was very dark and we didn't pursue what's further. We just didn't have time.

We met three other hikers leaving the cave as we were coming in. Along the trail back to the parking lot we met them going the other way. For sure I thought they would have long been gone since they had a headstart, but they were going back to the cave? It turned out that they took the wrong trail back to their point of origin. They asked us if this trail leads to Hollister (which is our point of origin) and we said yes. They came from Soledad side of the park. I hope they made it without too much delay and hoped they were carrying enough water. It was an 80F weather, although windy so that was not really bad.

After the hike we stopped at the gift shop for some ice cream before starting the long drive home. I enjoyed the rural scenery this time around.

We rewarded ourselves with some burgers for all our efforts. We don't have this where we live.